Week 7 blog post!

There is a significant difference between physical objects and their digitized versions. I think one of the biggest things, to me, is that you really have no concept of size and the level of detail that you can observe depends on how good of a photo was taken of the object. With a physical object, knowing the size of the object is an important part of knowing how the object was used—my object is a book, and I have no clue what size it is. It could be typical book sized, or, since it’s a prayer book, it could be smaller, with the intent that it could be carried on somebody’s person easier, or, while unlikely for my book, there’s a chance that it could be larger and intended to be displayed. The size would differentiate the book from a personal object and an object made for a group of people, whether that be a family, or a larger community of people. Along with that, the level of detail is restricted to what the photographer focused on when digitizing the object. With my book, I don’t have issues with not having enough detail, but other objects that are more artistic are at a distinct disadvantage when you can’t get up close with it. (There’s also something to be said about objects in museums being kept behind glass and reducing your ability to see detail there.) There’s also just no way to really grasp an object’s spirit when it’s digitized. There’s a whole part of viewing something that’s added to by the smell, the physical space it takes up in the world, and also how other people react to the object that’s just lost when an object is digitized. I remember seeing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in person, and the amount of people craning their necks to see the art, and the way the room stays completely silent (sans people being told not to take photos), and seeing truly how much is painted on the ceiling and in such detail is an entirely different experience from seeing photos of just specific sections.
Indigenous objects in museums are very loaded objects to talk about. While it is very important for repatriation of funerary objects, sacred objects, objects of cultural patrimony, and remains to happen, there’s a weird area that exists with objects that don’t easily fall into those categories. Why don’t they go back to the peoples who created them and who they matter to? At the same time, there’s something to be said for museums (that operate as ethically as they can) creating places that people can learn about the history of these peoples and preserving older objects. An essential part of that, though, is collaboration with the peoples who created the objects. Without their direct input and involvement in the process, there’s no way for any objects to be shown ethically and with respect to the history that they come from. When I was in elementary school, we went to the Burke Museum in Seattle where we saw salmon nets made by the Coast Salish people and made our own (mini) salmon nets. I remember more from that museum trip learning about some of the Indigenous communities in Washington more than I remember learning about anything else on a field trip as a kid and more than I remember learning about Indigenous communities in Washington at any other time.